Many arenas and stadiums which accommodate hockey, ice skating, and other ice sports have methods of visual entertainment for the attendees, including flashing scoreboards, traveling spotlights (for highlighting sports players or entertainers), laser light displays, and so forth. These lights provide visual stimuli and information, which increases general attendee excitement and crowd attendance. Some light sources are visible with the arena lights on or off, while others can only be viewed at low lighting. For example, images are sometimes projected onto floors or ceilings, but the images are usually difficult to see unless at least some of the lights are dimmed or turned off.
Some prior patent documents have illustrated the use of illuminators which emit light from the ice itself. One example is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,667,481, which utilizes a light-emitting diode (LED) panel embedded within the ice. However, this device is not known to be in widespread use, probably owing to its cost, thermal issues (i.e., heat from the LEDs melting the ice), size, difficulty in installation and removal, and its visibility within the ice when it is not illuminated. Japanese Patent Document JP2001243818 illustrates the use of fiberoptic cables embedded in ice to generate illuminated lines and linear characters (e.g., cursive letters) in a manner somewhat similar to neon lighting. However, this arrangement is also not known to be widely used, probably owing to high cost, the large fiber diameter needed to generate noticeable illumination (which in turn causes difficulties with cable stiffness and bending), the difficulty in forming cables into desired shapes (and retaining them in such shapes while ice is formed atop them), and related difficulties with installation and removal.
To better understand the drawbacks of the foregoing systems, it is useful to review the conventional arrangement used to form an ice rink. The ice rink is usually situated atop a chilled concrete slab, which usually has embedded pipes or channels for circulating some chilling medium at below-freezing temperatures (often brine at approximately 16 degrees F.). Atop the slab, a dam, which is generally formed of aluminum or steel, encircles the rink area wherein the ice is to be formed. This dam retains water in the rink area while it is chilled to form ice. Ice is usually formed by spraying deionized water in a fine mist atop the rink area of the slab, and it is usually formed in layers, with a new layer being sprayed on once the prior one freezes. Often, one or more of the initial layers of ice is painted to form a more regularly-colored playing surface, and/or to define game indicia (border lines, goal lines, foul lines, etc.) or decorations (logos, ads, etc.). Usually, the second layer of ice is completely painted white, the third layer is applied atop it and then the game indicia and/or decorations are painted on this third layer, and then subsequent ice layers are then formed atop these prior layers until all layers are approximately 1.5 inches thick (or some other thickness such that the surface temperature can be maintained at about 2 degrees F., which is usually optimal for skating). Dasher boards, tall barriers which effectively fence off the rink area, are then often situated on and bolted to the dam bounding the rink area. The whole process for constructing the rink can take 6–48 hours.
Since most ice rinks are used for other purposes besides hockey or ice shows, the rinks often need to be converted to other uses in a short period of time (e.g., for basketball, concerts, etc.). Often, the ice rinks are converted to other uses by simply removing the dasher boards and placing new flooring over the rink area and dam, with the ice being preserved beneath for reuse. However, other uses may require hasty disassembly of the ice so that the slab of the rink can itself be used as a floor surface, in which case the ice is simply broken or cut for removal.
Because of the steps needed for the foregoing assembly process and the nature of the constructed rink, LED arrays and fiberoptic cables are not very suitable: their size and dimensions make it difficult to form the rink in the conventional manner without having “bumps” in the ice, and one cannot simply disassemble the rink by breaking the ice without also risking breakage of the (relatively expensive) LED arrays and fiberoptic cables. It would therefore be useful to have some form of ice illumination system available for use which at least partially overcomes some of the problems of the prior systems.